“Arthur Millican Jr., a former Disney artisan, typically works at a much smaller scale building tiny houses for fairies and gnomes, but this super sized fairy house has been scaled up and is ready for play!”
https://bit.ly/J9zXNX
This was by the side of the road on Hwy. 61. It’s a good visual example for a novice builder of the framing of the simplest of stud-frame buildings: the shed roof. Looks like 2×4 studs, 2×6 rafters. Also looks like the builder is part-way through blocking the rafters.
I’m in Duluth in a hotel room at the Fitger (150-year-old) Brewery/Inn, looking out at the foggy (and cold) waters of Lake Superior, getting ready to head back home this afternoon. I’m looking through the hundreds of photos I’ve shot in this somewhat remote corner of the USA. What to do with all this “content?”
This is the working vehicle of builder Bryan Kufus of Vadnais Heights, MN. It’s a 2003 Ford F350 he bought used from Home Depot. The body is a customized unit, built by Alum-line in Iowa. There’s a heavy-duty sliding section in the back and multiple cabinets on each side, containing just about all the tools (+ caulks, glues, etc.) that any carpenter would want. Details will be in our next book on road vehicles and boats.
Mark is one of the original founders of the North House Folk School, and yesterday afternoon I hung out with him in his shop, wood fire burning in stove. A working shop is a great place to hang out. There were spiffy models of boats and canoes hanging all over. Mark seems to be able to design and build just about anything (including 26 birchbark canoes, mostly in North House classes).
I wanted to see photos of a number of mobile things he’s built. Since he doesn’t use a computer, I downloaded 381 photos from his camera and suddenly I have a passel of well-designed and well-crafted things for our next book, Wheels and Water: van, sailboat, shed, tent-in-snow, yurt, toboggan…
I’d been noticing these little carved figures and asked him where they came from. Well, he carved them. More to come from Mark…
Well, I was nervous. I was, ulp, the featured speaker of a 3-day symposium on sustainability and to tell the truth, I’m more comfortable with a lower profile. Plus this was a bunch of competent people. By the time the room filled up, there were 100 people, and I’d say that just about every one of them could build and/or grow and/or create wonderful objects with their very own hands.
Plus the the MacAir, as it is mysteriously wont to do, was not speaking to the Epson projector (in a language the Epson could understand). I was sweating it. Helpless with the complexities of the digital world. (Doing slide shows with a Carousel projector back in the day was way less risky. Slides in slots. I could see them, etc.)
We finally got rolling, with some tech advice from the crowd. “Hit option-command-escape.” Well OK.
It was the 12th slideshow I’ve done now, and people all over the country seem to be interested in tiny homes. I told them something that has occurred to me lately,that it’s not necessary for everyone to live in a tiny home. The message here is to go in the direction of smaller. Rather than larger.
I’m doing a talk at noon today on communication, how I get pics and info into regular books, e-books, newsletters, and blog posts. Methods, materials, techniques. Photography and interviews and email communication. Then back to Duluth and home sweet home Monday. What a great trip this has been!
Thanks to Bob Dow for sending this
I am having lot of fun! I did my seminar on the small homestead today and am the, ahem, featured
speaker of this 3-day conference on sustainability. I’m doing my Tiny Homes slide show and answering questions tomorrow night at 7:30 (brick oven pizza being served). I got interviewed on the local radio station today and it sounds like a local web TV outfit is going to film it tomorrow night.
